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Genome Management Information System: A Multifaceted Approach to DOE Systems Biology Research Communication and Facilitation

Anne E. Adamson, Shirley H. Andrews, Jennifer L. Bownas, Sharon Burris, Kris Christen, Holly Haun, Sheryl A. Martin, Marissa D. Mills, Kim Nylander, Judy M. Wyrick, Anita J. Alton, and Betty K. Mansfield (mansfieldbk@ornl.gov)

Biosciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Project Goals: Help build the critical multidisciplinary community needed to advance systems biology research for DOE energy and environmental missions and foster industrial biotechnology. The Genome Management Information System (GMIS) contributes to DOE Genomics:GTL program strategies and communicates key GTL scientific and technical concepts to the scientific community and the public. We welcome ideas for extending and improving communications and program integration to represent GTL science more comprehensively.

Concerted communication is key to progress in cutting-edge science and public accountability. With support from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, the Genome Management Information System (GMIS) has for 20 years been the main communication resource supporting the Human Genome Project (HGP). However, since 2000 our primary focus has been to help plan, and communicate
DOE’s Genomics:GTL (GTL, formerly Genomes to Life) program enabled by the HGP. The goal of GTL is to attain a predictive, whole systems–level understanding of microbes and plants to help enable biobased solutions to DOE missions. Our mission is to work with DOE staff and the broad scientific community to communicate biological science challenges and findings to stimulate advances at interdisciplinary interfaces, democratize access to the growing bounty of resources and data, and drive more-informed scientific and societal discourse. Our goals focus on three areas: (1) facilitate GTL planning, research, and communication; (2) respond to communication needs of related projects; and (3) communicate about DOE genomics research and potential applications.

Technical communication integrating all facets of GTL research is critical for spurring innovation at the most rapid pace and at the lowest cost. Such communication is important to achieving DOE missions and, ultimately, fostering U.S. competitiveness through growth in the industrial and environmental sector of the biotechnology industry spurred by DOE genomics research.

Throughout the HGP (1989 to 2003), GMIS strategic networking and communication helped promote collaborations and contributions from numerous fields and reduced duplicative scientific work in the growing genomics community. GMIS staff and the resources we created became the primary “go-to” source for information on all things genomic for much of the scientific world, the media, and the public. A large collection of, informative literature; websites; large-format exhibits; and graphics forms the core of these resources, which are assessed frequently for value, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness. Hundreds of thousands of document copies have been distributed. In addition, GMIS websites annually receive some 20 million page views (224 million hits), many from people who are just learning about genomics and systems biology. Through our resources, networking at various professional scientific and related education meetings, and partnerships, we continue to broaden our reach and focus the attention of those in the national media, government, academia, industry, education, and medicine on DOE genomics and systems biology research.

For the scientific community, communication and research information integration are even more important for GTL than for the HGP, which relied on one dominant technology—DNA sequencing—and produced one major data set—DNA sequence. This new generation of biology is more complex and involves a wider array of technologies, many just emerging, with new types of data sets that must be available to a larger, more diverse research community. Moreover, disparate groups of interdisciplinary scientists must be engaged to achieve the productive dialogue leading to research endpoints that will ensure the success of GTL. The stakes are high: GTL resources and data have the potential to enlarge the research community working on biotechnological approaches to DOE missions, resulting in more rapidly evolving scientific thinking and progress in these and related areas of critical global importance. Communication strategies must be dynamic and evolve along with programmatic needs.

Since 2000, GMIS GTL communication and research Since 2000, GMIS GTL communication and research integration strategies have included helping facilitate scientific workshops to develop GTL program plans; producing GTL symposia at national scientific meetings; and creating numerous informational resources and tools used by scientists, program administrators, and others. Research plans and reports we have produced with the research community are: DOE Genomics:GTL Roadmap: Systems Biology for Energy and Environment (August 2005), Breaking the Biological Barriers to Cellulosic Ethanol: A Joint Research Agenda (June 2006), and Carbon Cycling and Biosequestration: Integrating Biology and Climate Through Systems Science (December 2008). Other work in progress includes reports from two workshops—on GTL computing (knowledgebase) and on biofuels sustainability as well as this abstracts booklet. We also continuously update and enhance GTL’s web presence.

In addition to helping drive communication within the scientific community, GMIS will continue to leverage the high level of public interest in genomic science with our established and future resources to inspire a similar wonder at the challenging new task before us: Learning how genomic “parts” (i.e., genes, regulatory components, and networks) work together to produce the processes of life. GTL pursues this grand scientific challenge via investigations in microbial and plant systems, whose sophisticated biochemical abilities are just now being understood and tapped. We will help communicate the excitement of these investigations and their potential applications within the growing interdisciplinary research community and to broader audiences.

“Interdisciplinary research…is a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research practice.” [National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2005.]

http://genomicsgtl.energy.gov/, 865/576-6669

This research sponsored by Office of Biological and Environmental Research and Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, U.S. Department of Energy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U. S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.

GMIS invites comments and suggestions about its documents and services, which are available upon request and without charge.

For a list of staff and our address, see contacts.

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